Senate said OK to felons, insane getting semi-automatic weapons

A few weeks ago, the Senate spoke: Forty-two Republicans and four Democrats said it's just fine for convicted felons and legally insane people to buy semi-automatic firearms. Think about that the next time you see Sen. Dan Coats' name on a ballot. Background checks was a baby step on the path to sensible gun control measures.

In his victory speech, Sen. Rand Paul commented that the Connecticut children's parents who came to Washington to talk to senators were used as "props." A Tennessee senator (interviewed on the Piers Morgan show) said liberals will now demand that background checks be done on anyone buying a pressure cooker. An April 28 letter in The Star described background checks as an effort to "incrementally seize firearms from all Americans." Mock the dead, regurgitate NRA hysteria, or lose contact with reality - anything to divert attention away from the real issue.

Yes, there is a real issue here: some 12,000 homicides-by-guns are committed every year. And who knows how many tens of thousands of times guns are used in the commission of a variety of criminal activities. However, 46 senators' quest for the coveted NRA "A" rating trumps all. And I was taught in high school biology that all chordate subphylum vertebrates had spines.

Les McClain

Richmond

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Senate said OK to felons, insane getting semi-automatic weapons

A few weeks ago, the Senate spoke: Forty-two Republicans and four Democrats said it's just fine for convicted felons and legally insane people to buy semi-automatic firearms. Think about that the